Are my batteries dead or what?

[chracatoa]

So an odd thing happened this weekend. Our campground had a power outage in the middle of the night, and we noticed because our fan stopped working. The power was still not back in the morning and we heard it would take a long time for it to be fixed, so we bailed out. The campground would soon have sewer problems and their bathrooms were already closed since the pumps couldn't work.

We managed to have everything done with lights on but the power was gone midway through closing the slide. I connected the TV and finished the job.

The two batteries and the trailer are 4 1/2 years old.

At that moment I'm thinking it's time to change them - I'm not sure how long they're supposed to last anyway. The trailer was connected to power for two days when we had the power outage, and the batteries didn't last 8 hours of almost no use (except fridge and maybe heater).

When I got home the fridge turned off as soon as I turned off the TV engine. At this moment I'm already planning to use my electric tongue jack with the TV running and plugged in. However, after we unloaded the trailer and everything I completely forgot about that and I unhitched with the power plug disconnected. Once I realized that I immediately tried to use the jack and it worked fine - in fact, I had just used it to unhitch. What the heck?

Inside the trailer everything is dead - lights, fridge, slide. I press the battery button inside to see how much is left and the lights flash for a second but they quickly turn off, indicating a dead battery. Still, the jack works like there's no tomorrow - I double checked after that.

Any idea what's going on here? Is it really time to change my batteries?

[westend]

The solution to keeping operable is like Soundguy states, resettable circuit breaker. The long term solution is to buy new batteries, buy a hand held meter to diagnose electrical issues, and learn how your 12 V system works. Also, as was mentioned, a disconnect switch is mandatory for battery health. If not disconnected the parasitic draws from alarms, circuit boards, etc. will draw the batteries down in short order.

12 Volt side of life

battery university

[Lynnmor]

If you have no disconnect switch the batteries may have been somewhat abused over the years, that is deep discharging and recharging. Get a switch and always turn off the batteries when not being used or charged. Your batteries may be fine, just get them tested before buying new.

[Chuck_thehammer]

I just replace the circuit breakers under the nose of trailer right behind the battery box.. 1 is for trailer (50 amp) and 1 is for slide out (20 amp)... on my 2005 Coachmen.. just follow the main positive cable under the frame from the battery.

mine did not fail.. but had a voltage drop of 1/2 volt with a small power draw .. so going bad.

like 10 dollars each.. not sure. but CHEAP.

[chracatoa]

As far as I know I don't have a battery disconnect (i.e.: I didn't install one). I'll check this weekend for the re-settable circuit breaker mentioned above.

Either way, should I also change the batteries? We'll go dry camping for 2 days in about 3 weeks and even though we'll have access to a generator my confidence in having enough power in my trailer now is pretty low.

[SoundGuy]

JWRoberts wrote:
You are close to the max life for RV batteries, so just change them. I'm betting your problem will be solved.

That makes no sense ... the OP clearly said that everything 12 vdc inside the camper didn't work but the tongue jack worked just fine. Dead batteries don't run a tongue jack. :S

[JWRoberts]

You are close to the max life for RV batteries, so just change them. I'm betting your problem will be solved.

[Fireballsocal]

If you were running your fridge on 12v, then it might have depleted the batteries enough to where you could see these problems arise. Dropping them down that low isn't good for the batteries however at 4 1/2 years, you have gotten good service from the original batteries. I would plug in the trailer till the batteries are fully charged then run the trailer in your driveway to see how well it handles the normal loads.

[SoundGuy]

chracatoa wrote:
Any idea what's going on here?

The tongue jack is connected directly to the battery but the feed from the battery positive terminal to the rest of the trailer runs through a resettable circuit breaker. Check it, perhaps it's failed.

[Toddupton]

Battery disconnect